Call of the Mountain

The Swiss graphic designer, painter, and illustrator Alois Carigiet was born in 1902, 
the seventh of eleven children, and grew up in his family's farm in the small village of Trun. 
In 1911, economic hardship forced the family to move to the canton's capital Chur, 
where his father found employment. This relocation into a more urban environment 
had a strong impact on Carigiet, who later described the move as an "emigration to the low-lands",
 from a "mountain boy's paradise" to a "gloomy apartment on the ground floor in a narrow town alley".
 In 1918 he quit the gymnasium to start an apprenticeship as a decorative designer and draftsman. 
While learning the techniques of decorative art,Carigiet filled volumes of sketchbooks 
with drawings of rural and urban scenes, farm animals and pets, anatomical studies of the birds
 exhibited at Chur's natural history museum, and caricatures.

1936

In the same year he found work in Zurich with Max Dalang's advertisement agency, where he learned

 the techniques of graphic design. After having won several competitions and gained a reputation, 
Carigiet opened his own graphic studio in Zurich in 1927. He hired some assistants and
 built a very successful practice, creating many posters, murals, illustrations, and magazine covers.
Funny and elegant animal characters were a frequent theme in the ads produced by the studio. 

1938

1940 ca.

While on holiday in his native mountains in 1939, Carigiet was seduced by the vast and unspoiled landscape,

 and the feeling of having found his way back to a long lost paradise. Realizing that this was his home,
he gave up his business in Zurich, and rented a small farm house without electricity or running water, 
the "Hüs am Bach" (house at the stream) in Platenga, where he devoted much of his time
 to observing and drawing the alpine fauna. In 1943 he married the art student Berta Carolina Müller, 
and in the following years the couple gave birth to two daughters and built a house.

1943

1947 

1948

In 1940, Carigiet was asked by the author Selina Chönz to illustrate a children's story 

about a boy's adventurous climb through snow to an abandoned summer hut in order to retrieve

 a large cow bell for the annual Chalandamarz celebration. After years of hesitating, Carigiet finally agreed, 

and spent several weeks sketching the scenery and architecture in Chönz's home village Guarda, 

which he used as a model for the book's village. In 1945 Schellen-Ursli was published in German,

and later it was translated into ten languages, including English.

A Bell for Ursli

Carigiet and Chönz created two sequels featuring Ursli's younger sister Flurina: 

Flurina und das Wildvögelein (Florina and the Wild Bird) in 1952 

and Der grosse Schnee (The Snowstorm) in 1957. 

Flurina und das Wildvöglein

During the 1960s Carigiet illustrated three children's books written by himself: 
Zottel, Zick und Zwerg, Birnbaum, Birke, Berberitze, and Maurus und Madleina. 

In 1966, he was awarded the Swiss youth book prize for Zottel, Zick und Zwerg, 

as well as the inaugural Hans Christian Andersen Medal for children's illustrators.

After moving back to Zurich with his family between 1950 and 1960, 
 in 1960 Carigiet finally returned to live in the mountains above his home village, 
where he dedicated himself fully to art until his death in 1985. 

L'Animal dans la Décoration

The color of autumn leaves reminds me of this beautiful folio created by M. P. Verneuil at the height

 of the Art Nouveau's ornamental frenzy. Verneuil was one of the most talented pupils in Eugène Grasset's

 Parisian atelier, and executed many designs under his direction for the 1896 portfolio

La Plante et ses Applications Ornementales. One year later he produced his own series 

of 60 lithographic plates containing hundreds of decorative depictions of animals 

and dedicated it to Grasset, whose realistic, detailed and romantic style clearly inspired him. 

 

Thanks to the New York Public Library for the gorgeous scans.

From the Field

Yellow Warblers

Holly Ward Bimba, the artist behind Golly Bard, paints lovely watercolors inspired

by the nature surrounding her cottage in the rural village of Upperville, VIrginia.

After learning how to work with watercolor from her high school art teacher, 

she studied printmaking, papermaking, and book arts at Syracuse University. 

Watercolor still remains her favorite medium, and she uses it to create 

delicate portraits of wild animals, plants, and other tiny wonders.

Wild Hare and Honey Bees

Web Weaver no. 5

Ant Hill

I love the way she combines her methodic, science–oriented approach to observing and recording

details and patterns, with a spontaneous, whimsical style and wonderful feeling for color. 

Frolic in the Fernwood

Wild Hare and Honey Bees

Black Swan and Water Lily Bog

RIng Necked Pheasant no. 2

Bard is fascinated by natural history, repetition, and cataloguing. She often creates

artworks featuring series of animals, or series of artworks with the same subject. 

Swarm of Empresses

Migration

Fanciful Feather Collection no. 1

Beetles, Weevils and Flies no. 8

You can view the rest of the series on Bard's Flickr gallery. 

Bard has recently designed the Woodland Collection of fabrics. These charming works can be bought 

from Spoonflower, a company that allows artists to print their own designs using digital textile printers 

and eco-friendly inks on natural fiber fabrics.